Fate of Jovita’s restaurant in question after heroin bust

Wednesday

Before the chic cafes and vegan eateries, neon lights and traffic, there stood a one-story wooden panel house on South First Street that would become Jovita’s.

Its greasy enchiladas were never the draw, its enthusiastic regulars recall. No, people flocked to the Tex-Mex restaurant and cantina beside East Bouldin Creek in South Austin for the scene. Under the leadership of the late Amado "Mayo" Pardo, a rugged, polarizing figure and convicted felon, the bohemian beat hangout was a community center, dance hall and music venue, a sanctuary for artists and poets, for history and political causes.

Yet since Pardo’s death at age 64 in January 2013, only weeks before his trial in a notorious heroin trafficking case, multiple claimants — including the government and his children — have been locked in a legal battle over rights to the prime real estate. With plans to sell it falling through last month, all parties have asked for more time to continue their negotiations.

For now, the building stands abandoned, its murals fading, its windows tagged with graffiti and its future in limbo.

"Jovita’s was a big part of a lot of people’s lives," said Todd Sanders, owner of Roadhouse Relics art gallery down the road. "It’s just tragic that it ended the way it did."

In a federal forfeiture complaint, prosecutors are seeking titles to four parcels of land from the Pardo family: the two lots on which Jovita’s sits in the 1600 block of South First Street and two nearby residential tracts in the 400 block of West Milton Street.

A major crime task force raided the sites in June 2012, carting out boxes of evidence but recovering no drugs at the restaurant. Still, law enforcement agents, who began their investigation in May 2011, say the South Austin business belongs in government hands since it functioned as a front for Amado Pardo.

Pardo, federal investigators say, was at the center of an underground ring that ran illegal transactions inside Jovita’s and in its parking lot, raking in the proceeds to overcome the establishment’s financial deficits. Fourteen defendants charged in the syndicate were convicted, among them Amado Pardo’s wife, Amanda Pardo, a co-owner who accepted a plea agreement in December 2012 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. His brother Jose Pardo, known as Joe, was found guilty by a jury in February 2013 and was given 30 years.

But Amado and Amanda Pardo’s four children and adopted niece and nephew — none of whom were implicated — are fighting to keep the rights to the restaurant, which they say their father left them in a trust, even as a mortgage company and Travis County lay claim to the estate over outstanding debt.

To stop it from devaluing and collecting more back taxes from the county, all parties had agreed that the land should be sold and that a court would temporarily hold the proceeds as the federal seizure case played out.

But the family’s lawyer, Olivia Ruiz, pulled it off the market this month when lien-free proof of ownership couldn’t be established through clear titles, according to court filings.

Real estate records reflect the venue was up for sale at $2.6 million last month, even as county appraisal documents show its value at about half that amount and unpaid taxes had reached an estimated $76,600 as of October. A "For Sale" sign still stands at the location.

Ruiz said she could not comment on any potential sale contracts. But if the title issues are not resolved and no other settlement is reached, the family could go to trial in the next two years to decide who owns what portion of the property.

Among those who hurt to see Jovita’s in its knotted state of affairs are the people who once helped turn it into something special, something that, as one customer recalled, was akin to "catching lightning in a bottle."

It took time to take off. In the early years after opening its doors in 1992, band members often outnumbered the audience. The venue was nothing more than a house with a garage and no air conditioner. It had one bathroom.

But country music legend Don Walser, who lived there for a time, made the place famous, musicians said. Affable magnates like Cornell Hurd and his washboard player, Danny Young, owner of the Texicalli Grille, kept it alive, packing the dance floor with crowds as varied as the sets, from politicos in business suits to grunge rockers and Texas cowboys.

"The whole idea behind it was to create a place that was representative of what Austin was about," said Hurd of the Cornell Hurd Band, which for 15 years lured fans from around the world to the location with its Western swing, classic country and boogie-woogie. "It was real showbiz, real loose."

By the late 1990s and into the 2000s, it had garnered an eclectic booking and a reputation for encapsulating the authenticity of the city. Booking agent Brad Reed had a knack for enlisting some of the best honky-tonk and roots acts around and kept a steady lineup that longtime fans can still recite: Walser on Tuesdays, Ponty Bone on Wednesdays, Hurd on Thursdays.

But there were other key players, too. Jovita Pardo, Pardo’s sister for whom the venue took its name, made it a space known for its camaraderie; the late poet Raul Salinas, then owner of Resistencia Bookstore a few doors down, exposed it to readings and political discourse.

The place helped launch musicians and politicians alike. Wayne "The Train" Hancock performed gigs there. Gov. Rick Perry had a birthday party there.

"I always joked that when I died, I wanted to be cremated and have my ashes scattered in the creek behind Jovita’s," said Judy Julian, who frequented the old haunt for years.

For Amado Pardo, owning the business had been a childhood dream, friends said. He grew up with little in the same Bouldin Creek neighborhood where it was established, and he constantly added to and fixed the place up with his brother. They used any kind of Plexiglas and material they could find — "whatever fell off the truck," fiddler and guitarist Howard Kalish recalled, chuckling.

The prominent restaurateur could have a volatile personality. Having served three prison sentences during the 1970s and 1980s, two for murder, he had a rough exterior and was at once beloved or loathed, depending on what side of his you were on or what mood he was in.

He tended not to follow city regulations until 2008, code and inspection records show. And he could be cheap about the food, patrons said.

But neither the musicians who played there for years, nor the avid regulars remember seeing any big-time drug dealings. In the few years before the bust, the landmark had lost most of its glimmer. The crowds had waned. The service was slow.

Still, Sanders prefers to remember the venue for its potential, and its owner for his generosity. Back in 1997, when he didn’t yet own his own gallery and was just making ends meet as an artist, Pardo commissioned him to design and build the Jovita’s restaurant sign. It was the first neon on the street.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.